No matter it can be physically demanding to always keep your momentum but you reach your goals much faster if you do. Plus, it’s somewhat more pleasant to feel the fresh air pressing against you.

Unfortunately, there are neither mental pedals nor mental feet you could pedal with. So building mental momentum differs a little from building speed on a bike. But just a little.

Let’s see how building mental momentum actually works:

Preparation

If you start to ride completely unprepared you risk having to move back to your starting point. That’s not what you want to do, so consider applying the following tips:

• Goal awareness: Do you know your goals yet? Your movement is just not effective if you don’t. I mean, how would you even know you’re moving into the right direction? You don’t need to plan every stopover but you should at least have a vague idea about where the journey should lead you.
• Safety measures: Know that you will experience times of doubt and maybe even frustration. Set up the steady will of not giving up. Having a hard time moving usually just means that you are moving up a hill. So look forward to the downhill ride that is yet to come! I also recommend writing a little motivational text you can read when you’re feeling bad.

Starting to Move

Time to ride!

1. Set small goals. This is the mental equivalent to start driving in the first gear. I recommend daily goal setting for fastest results.
2. Speed up the process of reaching those goals. This doesn’t mean you need to do achieve an amazing number of small goals a day, just make sure you built enough mental momentum to reach those goals fast and with ease.

Shifting Gears

When going for your small goals starts to become less demanding and you feel that you possess some unused motivation, you might want to change up:

1. Set some bigger goals. They shouldn’t be too hard. Setting goals that are out of reach would considerably slow you down. It would be like changing up too early. You shouldn’t choose goals that are too easy to reach either, as you need to go to the next level in order to get extra momentum. You don’t want to stagnate, do you?
2. Again, speed up the process of reaching those goals. Use your collected momentum to reach these bigger goals. Everytime you complete a task, your speed will increase by some amount.
3. Then you might want to change up again.

Repeat this process until you grew beyond what you’ve thought to be possible. Believe me, this mental momentum is some kind of motivation that will help you to yield quite some amazing results.

One additional note: You don’t unlearn riding a bike. Think about it.

So why do I think that 2010 will be a special year? It’s the number. Somehow there seems to be a symbolic value behind it that encourages people to tackle their problems and take a step towards reaching their goals. “2010″ just sounds like the perfect opportunity to me. I expect quite a lot of people to take that opportunity and do something about their lifes.

I got some plans myself. You know, I started doing all that self development stuff about half a year ago. And I already improved in many areas of my life. For me, 2010 will be the time to blow up my remaining limits. Setting me free.

It already begun. I’m adapting to the everyman sleep schedule right now. This means I’ll probably sleep only 4 hours a day from now on. Having all that extra time, I feel like it’s the perfect time to do some more changes.

Oh yeah, I’m looking forward towards all those pleasant moments of the new year that are yet to come. And you should do so as well. Start the year with a positive attitude to boost your success. And maintain that attitude.

Set the additional new year resolution of staying motivated all the year long. It’s not too late so set this resolution. Set it and let the year 2010 motivate you. The time has come to finally reach your goals.

Is it because people are different? Does self development only work for a special kind of people? I don’t think so. But there’s one essential part that is rarely mentioned:

Successful self development needs a solid basis. It has to come from within.

Sadly, a lot of people seem to ignore that fact completely. They try to rush into self development, using any promising sounding scheme that they found anywhere on the internet. But do they ever ask themselves whether they are ready to use the scheme? Probably not. Unfortunately, even the most sophisticated scheme only works if you comply with its requirements.

An Example of a Failed Attempt

Take the following common approach for example: Mr. X is completely dissatisfied with his own life. He’s one step away from depression and thinks of himself as crap. Not worthy to lead a happy life.

Now X decides to finally do something to improve these conditions, so he informs himself about self improvement. What he finds on one of the websites he browsed is the following method:

“Say out loud that you love yourself and your life. Do this every morning just after getting out of bed. This will result in higher self-esteem and a more positive attitude.”

Alright, X applies the method. He does exactly what was said on the website. But he gets strange results, because this is what happens: He slips right into depression. His self-esteem is as low as it can be. How could something like this happen to him?

It happened because he lied to himself. He might said that he loves his life but in reality he hated it. And that’s what he thought while he recited the words that should improve his life. So basically, he just increased the frequency of negative thoughts instead of creating a positive attitude.

The simple truth is: You can’t lie to yourself. That’s what X didn’t know. You can surely do better than him!

How I Created My Basis

Well, at first I should tell you that my starting point didn’t look all too bad. It all started about one year ago. I liked my life but I just wasn’t completely satisfied with all aspects.

That’s why I began to read a lot about self development and psychology. (Some of the books I found to be especially useful are listed on the page Resources.)

Some months ago I began to think a lot about my own life. About the goals I want to reach and about who I am. I’m not talking about this kind of daydreaming here. I sat down in front of my computer and concentrated on some basic questions while I wrote down every thought I considered to be important. This thinking process lead to some nice insights.

Now I’m still developing. Still thinking and gathering new information. The next step I need to take is going from theory to practice.

I can’t tell you how my life goes on but the quality of my life already improved and I feel that it’s still improving. So my approach worked for me. Still, I don’t want you to just copy what I did. Because my approach will not work for anyone.

Maybe you got a slight idea on how a successful self development attempt can look like. An attempt that came from within. Now it’s up to you whether you make use of this information or not. Just remember to go your own way.